Lonsdale Mews opens out of Lonsdale Road, Chelsea; and there is quite a noble entrance with large stucco pillars on either side and an arch over, on which is a design in relievo of Neptune and sea-horses and the words “Lonsdale Mews.” Inside there had once been stables and coach-houses, and over each a bedroom and a sitting-room, which was also, in the more prolific past, generally used as a bedroom, and a cupboard and a landing and so forth, the little home of the coachman (and his wife and family) attached to the genteel carriage and horses below. But the advancement of science and the progress of invention have abolished gentility, and so reduced the number of coachmen and carriages in the world that Lonsdale Mews has had to accept other tenants; and being too narrow down the centre for the coming and going of automobiles without a great deal of bashing of mudguards and radiators, has had to paint itself up attractively and fall back upon art and the intelligenzia.
Christina Alberta’s two young friends were in possession of one of these perverted coachmen’s homes, and as they were very inadequately prepared to pay the rent—it was a quite aristocratic rent—they were extremely glad to welcome Mr. Preemby and particularly Christina Alberta as co-tenants. Mr. Preemby was to have the big room downstairs and there he was to arrange his books and his surplus furnishings and ornaments and curious objects, and have a sofa that could be made into an apparent bed when he wanted to sleep in London. And Christina Alberta was to have a little bedroom for herself behind this wherein a breezy decorative scheme of orange and bright blue more than made up for a certain absence of daylight and fresh air. But when the two young friends had a party or when Mr. Preemby was away they were to have the use of the big downstairs room, and in the case of a party Christina Alberta’s room was to be a ladies’ cloak-room.
The lessors were to retain the use of the upstairs rooms and in the matter of the kitchen all things therein were to be held in common. None of this agreement was put into writing and many issues were left over frankly for future controversy. “We are to be the pigs that pay the rent,” said Christina Alberta; that was the general idea. “Much we’ll work out,” said Mr. Harold Crumb. “Much will work itself out. It’s no good being too definite.” What was definite was that Mr. Preemby was to pay the rent.
Mr. Harold Crumb was a red-haired young man, a shock-headed young man with a rampant profile, dressed in a blue overall, frayed grey trousers and slippers. He had large freckled hands and he did Black and White, which Mr. Preemby had supposed to be a whisky but discovered was an art. Harold lived by attempting to sell drawings for advertisements and pictured jokes for the weekly papers. His expression was lofty and his voice constrained and it seemed to Mr. Preemby that he was suffered rather than met by Mr. Crumb. With Christina Alberta Mr. Crumb seemed to be on terms of tacit friendship and no word passed between them. He lifted his hand and twiddled his fingers at her—with a kind of melancholy.
Mrs. Crumb was more effusive. She embraced Christina Alberta warmly and answered to the name of “Fay.” Then she turned to Mr. Preemby and shook hands with him quite normally. She was a slender young lady with carelessly bobbed corn-coloured hair, pale-grey eyes and an absent-minded face. She also was dressed in a blue overall, she wore oyster-coloured stockings and slippers and possibly other things, and her business in life, Mr. Preemby learnt, was to review books for various newspapers and write romantic fiction for bookstall magazines. Her right forefinger had that indelible inkiness which only the habitual use of an incontinent fountain-pen can give. There was a big screen in the downstairs room Mr. Preemby was to have that Mr. Crumb had made and Mrs. Crumb had covered with the bright mendacious wrappers of the books she had reviewed. This exercised Mr. Preemby the more because several of the wrappers were manifestly upside down, and he could not understand whether this was due to art, carelessness or some serious mental lapse.
“We’ll have something to eat,” she told Mr. Preemby, and then they could settle up things. But she had a surprisingly rapid articulation and it sounded like, “We’ll ’f sum t’eat ’n’ then we’ll set lup thins.” It took ten or twelve seconds to come through to Mr. Preemby’s understanding. Meanwhile she had turned to Christina Alberta. “’Dabit ’f work to do,” she explained. “Bres no’ clear’ d’way. Late las’ ni’. You be’r loo’ roun’ he’ while Nolly gessomeat an’ Ikn do ’p stairs fore you see’t.”
“Right-o,” said Christina Alberta, understanding perfectly. Mr. Preemby was left stunned, with his lips moving slowly. “So long,” said Harold, and took some money out of a black Wedgwood tea-pot and went and fell over things in the passage, and presently went out into the wide world while Fay vanished upstairs.
“She’s gone upstairs,” said Mr. Preemby, interpreting slowly, “to do their rooms. And he’s gone to get some meat. It’s a nice large room, Christina Alberta—and quite well lit. Quite.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been in a Mew before,” said Mr. Preemby, approaching a group of attractive drawings on the wall.
“In a what, Daddy?”